Representation: City of London Law Society reviews its work

The City of London Law Society (CLLS) has set up a heavyweight working party to review its future role in the post-Clementi era.


Members of the nine-strong group include former Denton Wilde Sapte senior partner Mark Andrews and Law Society Council members Simon Davis of Clifford Chance and Linklaters' Alexandra Marks.


The CLLS - which represents 17,000 solicitors or 15% of the profession in England and Wales - has also embarked on a series of meetings with senior partners of leading City firms to review the services it offers to members.


CLLS chairman David McIntosh, senior partner at Davies Arnold Cooper and former Law Society President, said: 'Our aim is to provide, as fully as possible, representation and other needs which fill the gap between what the Law Society can best provide nationally and internationally and what the City practitioners can do for themselves.'


He continued: 'We need to work out what the national Law Society is best placed to do and what things are better achieved by a local, specialist law society.'


Mr McIntosh told the Gazette: 'The feedback we have received so far indicates that there is an appetite for the CLLS to do more than it has done in the past, but there is no appetite to get into controversy with the national Law Society.'


The CLLS plans to produce a prospectus outlining its expanded services once the working party has completed its work.


The Law Society's regulatory and representative roles will be formally separated from January next year, following a historic council vote in January (see [2005] Gazette, 27 January, 1).


Writing in the CLLS's April newsletter, Mr McIntosh warned members that it would need to consider carefully how City practitioners can obtain adequate representation on what will be the much smaller representative Law Society Council.